Reasons Your Food Plots Don’t Work with Dr. Grant Woods
Other Solutions to Food-Plot Problems with Dr. Grant Woods
 Editor’s Note: If you’ve put time, money and sweat equity into your green fields; planted 10 green fields; and spotted plenty of tracks and signs around the green fields, but seen few if any deer or perhaps only does and small bucks or only deer on specific green fields, then you need to know why you’re having problems with your green fields. We took your questions to one of the nation’s leading deer researchers and the creator of Mossy Oak’s BioLogic green-field plantings, Dr. Grant Woods of Reeds Spring, Missouri, who has spent thousands of hours studying deer and green-field management, as well as studying how to most-effectively use those green fields to grow and harvest mature bucks. Let’s look at common green-field problems and Dr. Woods’ solutions.
The Miracle of Fertilizer and What you Need Besides Clover in a Green Field:
“One of my favorite projects I did when studying the effects of fertilizer was on a plot of land in northeastern Tennessee, where a coal strip-mining-pit operation once was,” Dr. Grant Woods recalls. The owners of the land had bought it for $60 an acre after the miners had mined-out all the coal and left. This land had no topsoil and had colors of dirt I didn’t even know existed. The owners who bought this land said to me, ‘Grant, can we ever grow a deer here?’ I answered, ‘Yes, just plan on buying stock in a fertilizer company.’ You wouldn’t believe the wildlife on that property just 4 years after we started replanting it. We put out a lot of fertilizer, so I know fertilizer is the key to any plant you grow.”
What You Need Besides Clover in a Green Field:
Many hunting-club members and land managers prefer to plant only one crop that will last all year, so that they don’t have to plant a crop for deer in the fall and another crop in the spring. Oftentimes outdoorsmen choose clover most frequently for a perennial crop for green fields. However, Woods believes that no one magic bullet, including clover, will provide the nutrition a deer needs all year. Woods explains, “A lot of people plant clover. Clover has a valid niche – a valid mission – but it’s not the end-all. Personally, I don’t like clover by itself, and that’s why I helped develop the ‘Plus’ in BioLogic’s  Clover Plus name that actually stands for ‘There’s something else in this mix besides clover.’ Clover Plus contains cultivars of a variety of chicory with extremely-deep taproots. This chicory is very drought-resistant. Chicory, which will store plenty of phosphorous and potassium in its leaf cell structure, has a very-high mineral content, an important feature for animal development and milk production for does. Also, during hot-and-dry late August, the clover will be browned-up and lay dormant until it receives fall rain. However, chicory loves that heat. The chicory’s deep taproot, much longer than the taproot of clover, will find moisture and be ready for forage during the time when the deer can’t find clover. So, the other clover products on the market that aren’t Clover Plus and are based just on varieties of clover will leave your deer herd high and dry during August with no food at the important time when antlers are finishing developing and the deer really need nutrition. Clover Plus has the needed nutrients to carry deer through that critical time frame.”
Consider Dr. Woods’ suggestions, and follow his prescription for planting and managing green fields to have better crops and more deer this season.
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